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Bill Would Ban School Suspensions in Pre-K The District’s traditional and charter schools would be prohibited from expelling or suspending pre-kindergartners in most circumstances under new legislation that D.C. Council member David Grosso introduced Monday. The move comes in response to a recent city report on school discipline that showed that 3- and 4-year-olds received out-of-school suspensions 181 times during the 20122013 school year. “That’s ridiculous,” said Grosso. (THE WASHINGTON POST) ARLINGTON
Arlington to Vote on Pub-Crawl Crackdown Arlington’s pub crawls may soon be less freewheeling. The county is preparing to create regulations that will require special events permits before bars can hold the popular and controversial events. The County Board on Saturday will vote on whether to change its events policy to require taverns to get a permit to hold open-air parties that are likely to attract more than 500 patrons. If, as expected, the board members approve the change, bars could be charged for police patrols and trash cleanup. (TWP)
Hearsay
“I have only one goal in life. To make sure my children never have to endure what I did as a child.” — A LLIS GODOY, WHO FLED TO D.C. FROM HONDURAS A DECADE AGO, ON HER EFFORTS TO HAVE HER CHILDREN SMUGGLED TO THE U.S. BORDER. FOR THE FULL STORY, GO TO WASHINGTONPOST.COM.
The District will move forward with the tax-cutting plan
health-club memberships for the first time, to gut a property tax exemption for senior citizens and to place new restrictions on the mayor’s ability to move funds between agencies or tap emergency reserves. But the Council didn’t abandon the plan forged by Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who moved to substitute a package of income, estate and business tax cuts for hundreds of millions of dollars in planned spending on the city’s developing streetcar system. Only Tommy Wells, who voted against the budget last month, declined to support the override. “I believe that this budget is unwise,” Wells said. “This budget says it’s more important to have tax cuts than to fund the transit
Washington The D.C. Council wasted little time in overriding Mayor Vincent Gray’s Friday veto of the 2015 budget, voting 12 to 1 Monday to move forward with the more than $10 billion tax-cutting spending plan it passed last month. In delivering the veto Friday, Gray told the council in a letter that he “cannot turn a blind eye to the impact it will have on the next administration and District residents” — criticizing the council’s moves to extend sales tax to
MELINA MARA (THE WASHINGTON POST)
WASHINGTON
Council Overrides Budget Veto
D.C. Council member Tommy Wells cast the lone “no” vote to override Mayor Vincent Gray’s veto of the 2015 budget.
infrastructure we need.” Most other members spoke up in support of the Mendelson deal, saying that while it may include provisions they might not like, the overall package is worthy of support.
Beer Tourism Is Brewing in Va. Loudoun County, Va. First came the wine lovers, flooding dozens of Loudoun County, Va., tasting rooms in search of favorite local varietals. Next came the foodies craving a gourmet bite to accompany their glass of cabernet franc. Now, with an exponential rise in the number of local craft breweries across Loudoun, fueled in part by a new state law that grants farmbased breweries the same privileges as their winery counterparts, Loudoun has identified its latest tourism target: beer lovers. As the number of craft breweries and nanobreweries in Northern Virginia has soared over the past few years, beer enthusiasts in Loudoun have helped lead the charge, capitalizing on the newly relaxed regulation.
One member, Jim Graham, said he considered whether funding for the homeless might be revisited in light of a Washington Post investigation published Sunday into the state of the D.C. General family shelter. But Graham said he was not convinced further negotiation with the Gray administration would be fruitful. “I can’t count on the people on the other side of the table,” he said. To sustain the veto, Gray would have needed to persuade five of the council’s 13 members to oppose the override. Gray, who lost a re-election bid in the April 1 Democratic primary, acknowledged Friday that the council was likely to kill the veto, but he said he felt compelled to speak up for his priorities. MIKE DeBONIS (THE WASHINGTON POST )
Charges Will Be Filed in Target Theft Case Leesburg, Va.
PAUL MILLER
In Brief
Old Ox Brewery in Loudoun County, Va., opened a tasting room in Ashburn in June.
“In the last year alone, we’ve seen probably six or seven breweries open up,” said Brian Jenkins, director of marketing for the county’s tourism association. By the end of the year, he says, the county will
be home to about a dozen breweries. A mong the newest to join t he c r owd i s Old O x Br e we r y, w h ic h op e ne d it s A shburn tasting room in late June. CAITLIN GIBSON (THE WASHINGTON POST )
#NotaStateProblems: In New Hampshire, the law says businesses selling liquor can accept a passport, military card, driver’s license or photo ID from any of the 50 states (as well as provinces of Canada) as proof of legal age. You’ll note — there’s no mention of D.C. in there. Travis Mitchell learned that the hard way last week, when a liquor store refused to accept his D.C. license, citing the law, the Concord Monitor reported. Gov. Maggie Hassan tweeted that she is looking into the statute. (E XPRESS)
Leesburg police said Monday they would move forward with charges in an alleged shoplifting case in which a Target security officer said he lost his job when he reported the alleged incident. The police in a news release Monday also said the suspect was “positively identified as a Fairfax Sheriff’s Office employee” and that they had notified the sheriff’s office of the allegations on May 30, three days after the second alleged incident at the Target store. Police said they had been waiting on Target to decide whether to pursue prosecution. The charges will not affect the firing of Dallas Northington, the former assets protection specialist for Target who said he was terminated on June 3 after reporting two shoplifting incidents, and providing surveillance video for both, to the Leesburg police. TOM JACKMAN (THE WASHINGTON POST )